Am I really the only person who (after finally having been dragged kicking and screaming into HDTV, admittedly) thinks that 3D is a niche technology that will certainly never go mainstream (for broadcast), and that the niche for 4K or higher (also in broadcast) is so much narrower that broadcasters -- even networks -- don't really have to worry about it?

The BE article wrote:"Both broadcasters and viewers are being pressured by CE vendors to embrace 4K in order to sell new displays to everyone who has bought an HDTV, possibly with 3-D support — ongoing obsolescence."

Setting aside the point that this sentence is nearly unreadable, exactly what sort of pressure is an equipment manufacturer able to exert on a broadcaster who is required by law to comply with specific technical standards that don't include 4K? Television stations are still smarting from viewer wrath after the government made millions of perfectly serviceable analog televisions obsolete; why on earth would we want to go there again?

CE vendors "pressure" everyone to adopt whatever snake oil they might be pushing this week and then walk away from it the next. Until [whatever it is] is a broadcast standard there isn't any reason for broadcasters to do anything with it.

I STILL see a whole lot of HDTVs connected to NTSC composite feeds and people think it is HD. Anything beyond that is wasted on them. Sorry, but that's just the way the market works.

Deep Thought wrote:Until [whatever it is] is a broadcast standard there isn't any reason for broadcasters to do anything with it.

Exactly my point.

Heck, we still have stations trying to pass off anamorphic standard def as HD by calling it "enhanced widescreen". An ironic term, since this enhancement actually decreases effective horizontal resolution...

I say if we're all going be stuck switching modulation and video standards every ten years or so, most recently to ATSC 2.0, 2.5, or whatever.. Let's just go to 8K and get it over with. Japan is already moving in that direction anyway. To them, 4K is so five years ago.